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The 49ers, giddy, exhausted and sore from their 36-32 win over the Saints on Saturday, sat back and watched with big smiles Sunday as the New York Giants became the first team in these playoffs to win a road game, upsetting the Packers 37-20 in Green Bay.

That means the 49ers’ first appearance in the NFC Championship Game since January 1998 will be at Candlestick Park on Sunday afternoon. San Francisco beat the Giants 27-20 there Nov. 13.

“It’s great,” 49ers cornerback Carlos Rogers said. “It’s a lot better than traveling to Wisconsin. More importantly, we’re playing a team we’ve already faced. It’s not as hard as preparing for another team we haven’t faced yet.”

Rogers said he watched the Giants-Packers game Sunday in bed, worn down after Saints quarterback Drew Brees threw for 462 yards Saturday.

“I should weigh myself, I know I lost some weight,” he said.

In that game against New York two months ago, Rogers carried some extra weight as he picked off two Eli Manning passes – the first time the cornerback did that in a game in his seven-year career.

The 49ers still needed defensive lineman Justin Smith to bat down Manning’s pass on 4th-and-2 from the 10-yard line in the closing seconds to secure the win.

“We got the turnovers and were able to get to Eli,” Rogers said. “The team has gotten better since we played them. They’re familiar with us just as we’re familiar with them.”

Yes, Manning has caught fire since then. He has thrown for 953 yards, nine touchdowns and one interception in the last three games, and on Sunday, he and the Giants were successful on half (8 of 16) of their third-down plays.

“Our confidence is pretty high,” Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora told reporters. “We have a very good team we’re about to go play in San Francisco, so we’re not going to go in overconfident, but this is a team that we think we can go in there and compete with.”

The 49ers are a confident bunch that likes taking the ball from people as well. They had five takeaways Saturday, this after they had 38 during the regular season; they committed only 10 turnovers. The plus-28 turnover margin was tied for the NFL’s second-best mark since 1941.

“We like to think that we play defense the right way,” defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said after the game Saturday. “We play physical, we play with our hands. We run to the ball. We don’t try to do anything too fancy, although we do have our changeups here and there. We try to play defense the old-fashioned, hard-school way.”

The 49ers might even get a player back Sunday. Tight end Delanie Walker, who had his jaw broken in two places last month, tweeted that he “Just got a lil workout in I’m so ready to pad up on Sunday.”

Briefly: New York is 4-0 all-time in conference championship games, including a 15-13 win over the 49ers in January 1991. … The Giants handed the 49ers their most lopsided playoff loss, 49-3, in January 1987. … The matchup between Manning and Smith will be the second time that two quarterbacks picked No. 1 overall in the draft will start in a conference championship game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The first was in January 1999, between the Jets’ Vinny Testaverde and the Broncos’ John Elway.

Familiar matchup

On Sunday, the Giants and 49ers will meet in the postseason for the eighth time. San Francisco has won four of the seven games:

Giants 37, Packers 20

Ticket sale Wednesday

Tickets for Sunday’s game will go on sale Wednesday.

A pre-sale for season-ticket holders begins at 10 a.m. At 1 p.m., sales will open to the general public. There will be a limit of four tickets per order, and seats will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis. As with the NFC divisional game, tickets are sure to sell out quickly.

All playoff tickets will be sold through Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.

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Vic Tafur started covering the Raiders in 2010. He has written a fantasy football, college football and college basketball column for the Chronicle, and covered the San Francisco 49ers and Golden State Warriors earlier in his career. Follow him on Twitter.